"We wanted to establish a flavor or personality for the Windsor" Val Austin explained. "A downtown dining room with the same compelling power as a shipwreck or a ghost town." "Someplace where Mr. and Mrs., especially Mrs. Seattle, could get away from the monotony of the workaday-world a brief escape to glamorous and far-off Tahiti. In other words," Val said, leading us into a tiki-decorated and grass-matted labyrinth of low-ceilinged rooms with Polynesian decor, "Saturday night at Quinn's Bar in Papeete. You are in Tahiti, land of the grass skirts, and wonders and surprises."

We looked around- and liked what we saw. If this is typical of post fair Seattle, we won't miss the fairgrounds-not even the fast-wiggling Tahitian dancer at the Polynesian Playhouse.

Grass-skirted cocktail and food waitresses glided in and out of the various dining rooms, many of them small and delightfully cozy (the rooms, we mean), with tasty-looking strips of beef, charbroiled and served on a stick.

After six months of eating food on a stick at the fair, we acquired a taste for teriyaki, also a mental resolve to return to conventional knife and fork once the fair ended. But, after tasting the Kalua hors d'oeuvre on a stick, our postfair resolution went out the bamboo window.

Another delightful innovation on the Kalua menu is something called Mai-Tai, a Tahitian concoction with a delayed-action fuse, that is served in a take-away bamboo glass by a sarong-clad beauty. Again, we must make it clear that only the bamboo glass may be taken home as a souvenir.

Gwynne Austin spent 18 years with the Roy Kelly Scott chain, and managed the Kona Inn on the big island (hawaii), was general manager of Honolulu's Halekulani and, later presided at the opening of Henry Kaiser's posh Hawaiian Village.

So when Gwynne left Hawaii to take over Seattle's Windsor in 1954, he brought with him much of the warmth and graciousness of the Islands. The Austins are warm and gracious hosts, and succeed, the must!

aloha, tikicoma

p.s. The remodel of the Kalua Room was done by Roland Terry, the architect that did the interior designs (I believe) for the Seattle and Honolulu Canlis' and the remodel of Clarks Islander in Tacoma.

" ...If this is typical of post fair Seattle..." would mean that this article was written just after 1962, and that the refurbishment described in it took place then also.

This supports my nagging doubt of the date you found for the exterior you posted earlier:

"Entrance to the Kalua Room, photo from the Seattle Municipal Archives, December 15, 1953."

For the use of a Tiki as a logo, and such a cartoony one at that, 1953 sounds way too early. That would predate Steve Crane, Tiki Bob, and the Beverly Hills Trader Vic by several years. Considering that on stamps that are used on the backs of these press photos the "5" and the "6" are very similar, and archives are not exempt of human error, I wager that the date of the above pic is actually December 15, 1963

I still don't know Sven, but the exterior shot wasn't a press photo but a Seattle City Light photo. They took 24 pictures with 19 of them of the kitchen, all dated Dec. 15,1953. Maybe an early electric commercial kitchen? Most of their shots are of dams and transmission lines, that sort of stuff.
Also this matchbook with the cartoony tiki...

which appears to be an earlier matchbook with a 6 digit phone number than..

this one with a 7 digit number.

The press photo I just posted saw stamped Nov. 5, 1962 and had more information on the back including...
"Tony DelFierro, Philippine-born maitre'd... began his restaurant career at the Kalua Room in 1956, working first as busboy, then waiter, waiter captain and night maitre'd...

The Roland Terry plan drawing was dated May 1, 1958. I did see this drawing and I think it said remodel.

The logo tiki was still in use in 1967

in a Seattle visitors guide, with the "later matchbook number" MAIN 3-2920 phone number.

And if they are all from one batch by the same company, they couldn't have been found somewhere else and added later, either.

The windshield makes the early date possible too:
"Though curved windshields appeared as early as 1934, it wasn’t until after World War II that many cars had them. By 1957, nearly all U. S. cars had windshields that curved four ways—not only at the sides but at the top and bottom as well. Curved rear windows, giving more styling freedom, were also introduced."

So I must revise my earlier post of doubt and concede, like I did the page before, that this is an incredibly early, perhaps the first, cartoony logo Tiki on the mainland!

Both fairly compelling theories on the dates, but I have one question. If Austin came from Hawaii in 1954, was the Kalua Room already opened? Also, being a car nut, I thought that tiny windshield glimpse looked 1955-1958ish to me. I very easily could be wrong. Just wondering. OGR

The Kalua Room is first listed in the 1954 Seattle Polk guide meaning it was open in 1953, it was in them until 1967 and gone in 1969 (the library didn't have the 1968 Polks). The Austin family had owned at least 5 hotels, 2 in Oregon, one in L.A. and at the time of the press photo, 2 in Seattle, having bought the Roosevelt the year before. Gwynne came over to run the Windsor, I assumed it meant he would be managing a property they already owned. As for the car window, I thought it was the rear window, the reason my mind went to that I decided had to do with the angle of the door pillar and a lack of a wing window. If my memory isn't failing me, I seem to remember quite a few early '50's cars with curved rear windows.

Well we have a date for the opening of the Kalua room, December 2nd 1953.

This is from ebay, unfortunately it doesn't say what magazine it was clipped from.

In 1955 Bill Speidel published the book "You Can't Eat Mount Rainier" in it he included the Kalua Room recipe for Teriyaki steak and his description of the restaurant.

The same year an ad was in a Seattle visitors guide for the Hawaiian Beachboys performing at the Kalua Room.
There seem to have been an unending supply of groups using this this name, including at least one recording in europe.

Speidel not only wrote but illustrated his books and In 1961's "You Still Can't Eat Mount Rainier" he added another recipe and reused his cool image of their signature fog cutter mug.

Lastly, a couple of years ago I saw this luncheon menu at the University of Washington special collections (no date).
I'll try find a better image of this menu I had one that was clearer but I can't find it now.

*Be My Guest In The Pacific Northwest is great book for anyone interested in NW restaurant history or restaurants of the late 50's. Bill Speidel's writing is so detailed it's pretty much the next best thing to having gone there.
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